Accessing Information about Islamic Science: Specialist Museums, Science Centres, and the Internet
Another global travelling exhibit, “Sultans of Science: Islamic Science Rediscovered” was created by MTE Studios, a company based in the Dubai and Cape Town, which had been commissioned to design the Islamic science history-themed Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai. From their background research into this subject and the enthusiastic viewer reaction, the global travelling exhibition was developed. The exhibition looks at the social, scientific and technical achievements that are credited to the Muslim world, whilst celebrating the shared scientific heritage of other cultures, demonstrating how many modern inventions can trace their roots back to Muslim civilisation.
Although the “Sultans of Science” exhibition is also devoted to the “Golden Age” of the contribution of Islamic scholars to science and technology 700-1700 CE, unlike “1001 Inventions” it is a pioneering “for profit” enterprise serving a worthy public cause and, indeed, a very successful one. The exhibition has been displayed in multiple venues in a five year tour across the USA and Canada, as well as in Asia and Europe. Visit: www.mtestudios.com.
While the above mentioned travelling exhibitions covered the broad spectrum of Islamic science, others have been conceived around specific themes, an outstanding example being “Nur: Light in Art and Science from the Islamic World”, organized by the Focus-Abengoa Foundation, Seville, Spain and first opened there in 2013 and then at the Dallas Museum of Art, Texas, USA in 2014.
Deriving its title from the Arabic word for “light” in both the physical and metaphorical sense, “Nur” highlighted innovations in artistic techniques that enhance the effect of light as well as scientific fields that contributed to enlightenment.
Another ‘twist’ to the subject of Islamic science and museums is that a number of museums in the Islamic world are themselves not only leaders in contemporary museum architectural design and museology but also scientific pioneers in the applications of advanced technologies in providing internet access to their holdings.
Undoubtedly the nation leading the world in the 1990s in creating an integrated national environment through high speed internet technologies was Malaysia. Its Malaysian Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) initiative was inaugurated in 1996 and was seen as crucial in transforming Malaysia into a modern state through harnessing “the full potential of multimedia without any artificial limits.”
Offshoots of this initiative are two major Malaysian museums which creatively exploit the potentials of new technologies, Petrosains Discovery Centre (petrosains.com.my) and the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia (iamm. org.my), both in the capital, Kuala Lumpur.
A corollary of this increased global interest in Islamic science history documented above is the collection of individual Islamic science artifacts as desirable acquisitions. Museums are performing a major role in safeguarding the Islamic scientific cultural heritage through major financial outlays on precious science history-related artifacts, in many cases with the assistance of great Muslim philanthropists.
Besides the increasing investments outlined above in museums and science centers, dedicated to – or with a major focus on the history of Islamic science, there is now a plethora of websites offering internet access to the subject.
Outstanding among these is www.muslimheritage. com, hosted by the Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation UK (FSTC), founded in 1999. This British non-profit making educational foundation, aims to generate social cohesion, inter-cultural appreciation, and to promote science and learning.
There was a concern that, although the Muslim cultural heritage is intricately pre woven into the rich fabric of all western societies, it is rarely visible to the majority of those who live within them.
This unwitting disparity and ignorance can silently contribute to the potential for tension and resentment. Visit: www.fstc.org.uk. Since its formation FSTC has created and supported many educational initiatives in the UK and elsewhere, including the “1001 Inventions” global project.
Established in 2002, the Muslim Heritage web portal was the first major project of FSTC. The website contains more than 1000 peerreviewed articles, as well as hundreds of short reports on news and events related to Muslim heritage research.
It is accessed some 30,000 to 50,000 times per day. Muslimheritage. com will soon include a unique major web-based directory of 70,000 source documents relating to Muslim heritage - the largest online data base of its type in the world.
FSTC also targets formal education through its work to enhance schools and universities’ curricula relating to our shared heritage through its programme, Curriculum Enrichment for the Future. It has become the world’s leading producer of educational material dedicated to the history of science within Muslim culture and civilisation.
Given the geographical and interpretative breadth of coverage of the history of Islamic civilization and science outlined above, whereby many millions of people have by now attended quality specialist exhibitions and educational opportunities devoted to Islamic science over the past decade, or have accessed information about the subject online, it can no longer be said that there is still a low level of global awareness of the contributions of Muslim civilization to the development of science and technology.
Indeed, last year (2016) in the British press there were vocal complaints that the new British national curriculum for history makes teaching about some foreign civilizations, including early Islam, compulsory but not landmark events and personalities in British history!
Through its bi-weekly publication in nine languages, the newspaper As-Salam and its sister informational vehicle, the website www.islam.ru, are helping to bring the knowledge of these international achievements in publicizing the contributions of Islamic culture to the consciousness of the national public.
GUY (GHAYDAR) PETHERBRIDGE
